Oh Nadiya. How we love you. I mean, like, everyone. Over 13 million people watched you win, rooted for you to win. You were invited to bake the Queen’s ninetieth birthday cake.

A poem by Shaheed Quaderi

How many of you have heard of the term ‘Birangona’, let alone know the faces described by this exceptional word? I’m guessing not many, which is sadly true even if you happen to be a Bengali – especially if you are a second or third generation British Bengali like me.

It is an oft-noted irony that the religions that want to heal and save us seem so frequently to be riven by conflict.

It is twenty minutes after midnight. The lobby of the five-star hotel is quiet tonight; more so than other nights. Then Jamil remembers it is Friday night. The bar is closed on Fridays. No wonder there are hardly any people.

Every city moves to its own beat. It was only when my friend Mahmudul Hasan took me one evening through the narrow streets of the Old City, down to the Buriganga River boat terminal at Sadarghat, that I felt the Dhakan bassline in my belly for the first time. 

On 5 May 2013 leaders of the Hefazat-i-Islam (‘Guardians of Islam’), an obscure coalition of Islamist groups, marched into the commercial centre of Dhaka city for an indefinite sit-in. It was their second such attempt in a month.